I must admit, to having a fascination with musicals.  It doesn’t matter whether their on television, at the movies, or in live theater.  I’m a sucker for them.  I think it started with MTV, back in the early 1980’s.  1982 or 83 I think it was when they launched.  Music videos are really just little musicals on their own.  Kind of like the short films of the big screen genre.  Some of the favorite movies from my youth were Fame and Dirty Dancing.  Long before High School Musical hit the airwaves.

So, it should come with no surprise, that I muchly anticipated the arrival of the television show Glee.  And, I must say it has lived up to my expectations.  That fact that it uses music from my teenage years is a bonus.  When I saw one of the original teaser trailers on YouTube featuring the song “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey, I knew I had to watch it.  But, it’s not just the music of Glee that keeps me coming back, it’s the characters.

One of the first reviews I read about Glee, described it as High School Musical with an edge.  And that’s still in my mind a pretty good definition of Glee.  But it’s not the only one.  What I like about the characters in Glee, is that their complicated.  There are very few clearly defined “good” and “bad” guys or gals.  With a few exceptions I suppose.  Our favorite cheer leading coach is pretty much a bad gal, but even she has had her moments.  When she started falling for the news anchor fella revealed a different side of her.

Even the kids though.  While there are a few typical “jocks” and “geeks” as minor characters, the main characters often embody a little bit of both.  The fact that in this day and age, everyone is a bit of a geek, and it’s kinda cool to be one just further muddies the one dimensional character model.  I for one think that’s kinda cool.  As I was probably leaning more towards the geek side long before it had any cool factor what so ever.  I was a member of the audio visual club in high school after all . . . yeeeech!  At least I kept my distance from the chess club.

As you probably know from watching a number of episodes from Naruto (or the second series Naruto Shippuden), it has some of the most dramatic and huge fight scenes ever seen in an anime. I have to say, fights between ninjas occur frequently throughout the series.

Regardless of whether it is a one-on-one fight or a battle sequence involving numerous ninja instructors, students and ANBU, the creator and writer, Masashi Kishimoto is able to convey the physical (as well as emotional) struggle and effort exerted by the characters. The fighting concepts expressed are very creative and the animation of the sequences is superb.

The movie Hangover is supposedly the highest grossing R rated movie ever produced.  It was one of those movies that greatly exceeded expectations to be sure.  Considering that it is a movie that pushes the boundaries of what could be considered good taste, makes it even more surprising as a box office success.  At least to some.  Every once in a while, there are those movies that take a chance and manage to make it big.  While I certainly enjoyed it, I can’t say it would work for everyone.  My significant other, was not all that impressed with it, and I can understand why.  It’s kind of a dumb-guy-humor movie that appeals to a certain crowd (mainly guys), that never fails to laugh at a good fart joke.

Yes, I did rather enjoy the movie.  Laughed quite a bit at most of it, and I should warn you that I will be revealing some of the funnier bits in the following paragraphs.  So, if you haven’t seen it yet (why not?), and hate spoilers than you should probably stop reading now.  Anyway, what I think makes the movie so funny, is not so much the events of the movie, as they way and order in which they are told.

Take for instance the whole losing of the groom sub-plot.  Now taking the groom, and moving his matress and him to sleep on the roof of the hotel while he’s passed out is a pretty funny idea.  But, have the same mischevious no-gooders forget about moving him to the hotel roof the next morning, and the spending an entire day trying to find him is frigging hilarious. Way more so, then it would have been watching them stuff him and his matress into a crowded elevator to put him on the roof in the first place.  See, it’s not so much the events themselves, it’s how you tell them that makes the difference.

There were a number of events that morning that seemed incredibly funny, simply because the three guys waking up in the hotel room have no idea how they transpired the night before.  For instance . . . SPOILERS … , finding a full grown bengal tiger in the washroom, while your pants are down taking a piss, is no way to wake up.  At least not for me.  And, I still want to know why there was a chicken running around the hotel room.  They never really answered that in the movie.  My theory is, that it was supposed to be a mid morning snack for the tiger.

Of course these guys were driving the father in laws prize vintage Mercedes, and have no idea how or who drove it home.  Waiting for the valet to bring it up has a three guys and the audience believing the valet will bring up a very destroyed vehicle.  One of the funniest parts for me, has to be when the valet brings up a police car, tosses the keys to the boys, and says “Here ya go officers.”  Totally funny and unique.

As you can tell, I thought it was a great movie, and highly recommend it.  With the caveat, that if you hate fart jokes, it’s probably best to stay away from it.

I was set up a bit for this movie by others who had seen it first and kind of fed my some erroneous spoilers.  Someone told me it was very sad and the dog died.  So, I kept waiting for the dog (of which there are many) to die, and it never did.  It was a bit sad at the beginning, but not too much as it involves a character the audience doesn’t get too heavily invested in, and incurs in the first 20 minutes or so.

It was an important 20 minutes though, as it created all the motivation for the movies main character, the older gentlemen to do what he does.  The person who dies early on, is his wife, and it does more then add a touch of sadness to the movie.  What it does, is make the older person seem more of a real person, especially to a younger audience.  The earliest scene, shows the older gentlemen as a young boy of about 8 or 9, meeting is futre wife over their shared passion for adventure.

We see them grow up, get married, have a life together, and realize a lot of their dreams will never come true.  Those first 20 minutes are a bit of a mini movie itself, and with an extra 1 or 2 minutes to wrap it up, I’m sure it could have been a pretty decent movie short.  But, that would take all the fun out the rest of the movie.

Up, is a movie by Pixar, so as you would expect it’s incredibly well done.  Not just the animation, but the attention to detail the story tellers incorporate into the movie.  From the way the house is floated and navigated through the sky.  Totally impossible to achieve in real life, but with enough explanation through the movie telling, the my suspension of disbelief was sufficiently appeased.  Being a sailor helps here (see the movie and you’ll know what I mean.).

One of my favorite parts of the movie has to be the dogs.  The talking collar on all the dogs is pure genius.  Not to mention an incredibly abundant source of humor for the movie.  From the nasty mean doberman with the malfunctioning collar that sounds like Alvin from the chipmunks to our main character good dog, that has a fascination with squirrels.  I have a dog that goes nuts over squirrels and forgets everything else in the universe at the time.  Anyone that has a squirrel chasing dog, has to laugh at this bit of the movie.  Having some insight into dogs, and having them say what a dog would it would really be thinking in a human voice is quite comical.  Reminds me of that old Gary Larson cartoon, where the dog hears nothing the owner says, except for the dogs name.

Definitely a fun movie, and one I would recommend without hesitation to just about anyone.  Unless of course you’ve had your sense of humor surgically removed, and hate dogs.

I’ve seen plenty of 3D movies.  Even long ago when they were a brand new novelty, before they fell out of fashion.  Over the last few years, it’s been interesting to see many movies makers use of 3D technology, as an attempt to woo movie watchers from their comfy home theaters into the local cineplex.  After all, it’s hard to gouge a paying customer for popcorn and a coke when their sitting at home.  While I’ve rather enjoyed the 3D movies I’ve watched lately, like Monsters vs Aliens, and Beowulf, a lot of them are just plain gimmicky.  Sure it’s cool to see popcorn and pies and bullets inches from your face, but the novelty only goes so far.  To be quite honest, it sort of draws you out of the movie story telling experience and get’s you all caught up in the technology behind it.  That to me anyway, is not what movies are all about.

I want to be caught up in the story.  I want to be sucked into the plot, the environment, and the characters plight.  I may be a sucker for good eye candy, but I want the complete immersion experience.  I want a movie to totally distract from the trivial details of my every day life.  When a movie does all this properly, my suspension of disbelief is in full gear.  This is what the newest and greatest 3D movie Avatar does in spades.  Sure, at the beginning the average movie goer (that includes me) is caught up in the 3D effects, but very quickly into the movie you forget it’s even there.   That’s because, James Cameron does what no movie director has done in the past with 3D, and that is he doesn’t make a big deal out of it.  He understands, that having gun ships hovering right over your popcorn do nothing for advancing the plot, or making you feel more attached to his characters.

What Avatar the movie does, is use 3D technology to make you a part of the movie.  It draws you into the scene in such a subtle way, that you don’t even realize it’s happening.  You feel like your really on Pandora running through the spectacularly colorful jungle, and experiencing it for the first time just like the main character Jake Sully.  Through the entire 3 hour movie, you don’t feel like your watching a flat screen.  Instead you feel like the images of the movie encompass your entire line of sight to the limit of your peripheral vision.  It makes for an incredibly immersion rich experience.  That fact that the jungle scenes and the characters and animals that inhabit them are incredibly beautiful makes it even more stunning.

I was warned by my 13 year old cousins friend, before going to the movie that it wasn’t worth watching it in 3D.  Given that the advice came from a 13 year old, I took that with a huge grain of salt, and saw the movie in 3D anyway.  I can understand now why he said it though.  There simply weren’t any eye jarring, disruptive 3D effects during the entire move.  To a 13 year old boy, that was obviously a bad thing.  To me, it was one of the best features of the movie.  I think the person behind me in the theater summed it up best, when he said, “Wow, that didn’t feel like a 3 hour move!”.  My initial thought was “That wasn’t 3 hours long”.  But, in fact it was, and well worth every minute of it.